


not that i lov'd caesar less

by watfordbird33



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 00:38:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11391744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watfordbird33/pseuds/watfordbird33
Summary: They do not cry. They will not.





	not that i lov'd caesar less

**Author's Note:**

> Discussion of murder, sexual content, mentions of alcohol, some swearing.
> 
> Title taken from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Act three, scene two, line twenty-two.

It takes ten seconds for Sirius Black to become a murderer.

And he does it with no regrets.

* * *

 

It’s three days later when Remus opens his door to the nine o’clock London sky and finds his sunset interrupted. Sirius, limping, has coal-metal eyes and a razorblade mouth. He’s an automaton linked by rubber bands.

They don’t talk. Remus opens the door a little wider and steps aside. 

* * *

 

“Is it done?” Remus says, after firewhiskey, and a bath for each of them, and drink coasters upended carelessly on the coffee table.

Sirius’s nod is more like a jerk.

“Merlin,” Remus says, and then it’s not enough; “God, fuck, Sirius,  _ Peter .”  _

Like a progression of all the worst and best and final things.

Sirius says, “I just--I--another drink.”

But he gets up himself. When he passes Remus, he puts his hand down and runs it through Remus’s hair. Just once. There’s still blood under his nails.

* * *

 

“Is the guest room--”

“Fine,” Sirius says.

Remus says, trying, one more time, “You did what you had to, Pads, you know--”

Sirius puts his hand up and spreads the fingers and light catches on the rusty red of it, half-formed, and Remus wondered if that’s how he did it, as Padfoot, held the rat down and tore him apart.

“James would have wanted it,” Remus whispers.

He’s out of ideas. And happy endings. They used to be four, once.

“Who fucking cares about James?” Sirius says, but that’s every lie he’s ever told.

He’s looking at Remus and all of a sudden it seems wrong to move, to leave, to close the guest room door and abandon this half-man to the rag-doll immobility he uses instead of tears. Remus takes a step, and then another, and another, and one final more. He’s pressed up against Sirius and they’re both hard and this is the end of it, isn’t it, brought against each other as the final two. The stand-ins. The left-behind.

(And this is where James stood, once.)

Rag-doll immobility. They do not cry.

Remus says, “I’m not him.”

And Sirius says, “I know.”

(This is where James stood, once. This is where James’s hand was, on Sirius’s scratch-stubble jaw. This is where James’s cock pressed. This is where James’s tears fell.)

They do not cry. They will not.

It’s done in twenty minutes. Afterwards, Remus sits on the edge of the guest-room bed and cuts Sirius’s nails down to the quick. 


End file.
